I’d been eager to read Batman/Superman: World’s Finest: 20,000 Leagues, and it didn’t disappoint. For one, writer Mark Waid has a couple unique scenarios — Batman and Robin in an Aquaman story is few and far between enough to not feel overdone, and the Bizarro World story, never my favorite, also offers interesting perspective.

But second, bolstering everything is the focus on Robin Dick Grayson as the protagonist, something that comes and goes in this series but is at the forefront here. Both of the main adventures are presented as new to Robin, and his wonder, terror, and problem-solving are the book’s best part. We don’t have a dedicated Robin book right now, and suddenly World’s Finest swoops in to fill the gap.

[Review contains spoilers]

The book starts with the titular “20,000 Leagues,” where Aquaman needs Superman, Batman, and Robin’s help when a plague causes unrest in Atlantis. The initial scene feels very “World’s Finest-y” in the classic sense, with Robin, Aquaman, and Superman getting together to enjoy a baseball game. There, Aquaman reminds Robin of what becomes one of the story’s throughways, that Aquaman is a fan of baseball and not, as Robin suggests, “octopus volleyball” because Aquaman was born on land and grew up, for the most part, with a relatively normal childhood.

As such, when fear of disease riles up the Poseidonians, Aquaman isn’t immune to their prejudice, and they question his dual loyalties to Atlantis and to the surface world. Waid doesn’t offer the most original conflict for Aquaman — verily, you’d think he wouldn’t still be king nowadays since he hates it and his people do, too — but this is a better representation of Arthur as human first, superhuman second than Waid had over in Absolute Power, for instance.

But again, the real fun is in Robin’s reactions to it all. Smartly — and I probably haven’t been giving enough credit for this — Waid has been eschewing the Jeph Loeb-type dual Superman/Batman narration, and in its place is Robin bopping along with quips about Aquaman talking to fish and about the villain du jour, Floronic Man. I’m a jaded comics fan to be sure, some of which I’ve held against this book, but for some reason in this volume Robin made it feel fresher than it has otherwise.

There are also the dual attractions of seeing Lori Lemaris and Swamp Thing in this story. Their individual presences were recently referenced in Jeremy Adams' Aquaman Vol. 1: The Dark Tide and Waid’s own Justice League Unlimited Vol. 1, so these were both the kind of continuity notes I’m a sucker for. We haven’t had a Lori Lemaris story in a while, and I’m interested in her appearance here both as it informs the mystery in Adams' book and because I wonder if Waid will use her in his early years-set Action Comics. Meanwhile Waid’s use of Swamp Thing is disappointing, the Man of Muck defeated and removed almost immediately, but still it was a fun idea.

Waid continues the volume’s strong streak into “Bizarro World Tour,” kicking off with Robin at the center of a Bizarro-infused slasher flick. That sets the tone for a Bizarro World story that’s less groan-silly than Waid’s World’s Finest: IMPossible, for instance, and more focused than Jason Aaron’s rampaging Bizarro in Action Comics: Superstars. And again, the winning element is Robin, whether entertainingly plumbing the rules of Bizarro World or when he ends up being the one who devises a solution.

The one chapter that didn’t work for me here was the one-off talk show issue between the other two — which, disappointingly, didn’t have Perry White and Jim Gordon on a Carson-like set being interviewed (by Jack Ryder?) as the cover suggests, but rather the two in a lounge with a so-called “dude-bro” podcaster. Granted, there is fun in a mecha Batman, and my favorite kind of crossover is the one where the supporting casts get involved (see one of my top Superman/Batman team-ups, Dave Gibbons and Steve Rude’s World’s Finest). But despite the White/Gordon pairing, the story’s a bit pat, the single issue not giving room for the depth of the others, and tellingly, there’s no Robin here to make this more than standard Superman/Batman superheroics.

I found new series artist Adrian Gutierrez' work too cluttered on World’s Finest: Total Eclipso, but in the main I thought it was improved here, particularly in scenes like Superman and Lori Lemaris' meet-cute. We’re not at perfection yet; there were some scenes — like something with Batman, a batarang, and the Floronic Man in the second chapter — where I just could not tell what was happening in the panels. Still, this is a trend upward that makes me more confident about Gutierrez continuing on this book.

There’s a lot to like, I acknowledge, about Mark Waid’s World’s Finest. With Batman/Superman: World’s Finest: 20,000 Leagues’ main story, the crisis here isn’t Superman’s or Batman’s; less so with “Bizarro World Tour,” but still, there’s an appealing lack of angst, the heroes not so much comparing and contrasting themselves than just working together. When Superman says they’re going to figure out their next move, Batman says, “I already have,” and Superman replies, “Naturally. Give,” it’s the banter of two friends with no ego involved.

I haven’t always had patience with the ad hoc aesthetic of Waid’s World’s Finest, almost an anthology, but this time (maybe because I’ve been reading some non-DC stuff for a while and I was eager to get back), the book hit better than usual.

[Includes original and variant covers]